“I despise all non-Christian worldviews, philosophies, and religions.”
For many Christians, the number one hindrance in apologetics is their respect for or even fear of non-Christian minds and ideas. These Christians have been told, often by the nonChristians themselves, that the non-Christians are the intellectual elite of this world. Even Christian ministers often tell their congregations that non-Christians are highly intelligent, and that many of their ideas are deep and brilliant. So when the typical Christian comes up against a non-Christian in debate, he often assumes that although the non-Christian is ultimately wrong, this opponent will still present numerous intelligent questions and difficult objections against the Christian faith, and that even if he manages to overcome the non-Christian’s intellectual assault, there will be a hard struggle, and the result will not be clear and decisive.
This false belief about the non-Christian’s intelligence produces a strong mental block in many aspiring apologists. Christians often ask me how to answer certain questions and objections from unbelievers. Sometimes I can understand why they do not know how to answer, as when these have to do with Christian doctrines that not all believers have studied.³ However, more often than not it would seem that the Christians should be able to easily answer them without asking me, especially those who have already learned the basics of biblical apologetics. Many are hindered because they falsely assume that the questions and objections from the non-Christians must be more intelligent than they seem, and thus must be more difficult to answer than they appear.
I despise all non-Christian worldviews, philosophies, and religions. All non-Christian ideas are detestable to me. Certainly, this is but an elementary identification with the mind of Christ and the wrath of God against all non-Christian thought; nevertheless, its power is such that my mind is liberated to perceive the utter stupidity and futility of the nonChristians, and the fallacies and vulnerabilities in their thinking. However, most Christians do not possess this low estimation of non-Christian intelligence. For this reason, they remain blind to the true strength of the biblical worldview, and blind to the roll-on-thefloor, sidesplittingly laughable lunacy of all non-Christian thinking. In fact, even to Christian apologists, this is perhaps one of the most repulsive aspects of my teachings on apologetics, but this is why they will never unleash the full power of biblical apologetics to destroy our opponents, and this is why their answers to non-Christians are feeble, indecisive, and compromising.
In 2 Kings 6, we read that the king of Aram had sent his army to capture Elisha. When the horses and chariots surrounded the prophet and his servant, the servant panicked and asked, “Oh, my lord, what shall we do?” Elisha told him, “Those who are with us are more than those who are with them,” and then he prayed, “O LORD, open his eyes so he may see.” “Then the LORD opened the servant’s eyes, and he looked and saw the hills full of horses and chariots of fire all around Elisha” (see v. 11–17). Likewise, divine wisdom and power are on our side, but we need to pray for spiritual sight, so that we may perceive the wisdom of God as well as the folly of the heathens.
Again, even Christian ministers who are otherwise sound in doctrine extol the wisdom of unbelieving men, but this is unbiblical, unproductive, and unnecessary. Rather, the Bible teaches that all non-Christians are foolish and futile, stupid and sinful. At best, their ideas are wise only according to human standards; that is, they appear to be wise only when they approve themselves, and when they judge themselves by their own stupid and sinful standards. But from God’s perspective — that is, from the objective, realistic, and biblical perspective — all unbelieving thoughts are irrational and rebellious. Let Christian ministers, then, speak in agreement with Scripture, instead of sending mixed messages to our people that undermine their confidence and obscure their spiritual vision.
Of course, I am not suggesting that we should underestimate our opponents, but we must not avoid underestimating them by overestimating them. We must not affirm false assumptions about them, but we ought to evaluate our opponents in the light of biblical wisdom: “Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools” (Romans 1:22). In other words, they think they are smart, but they are stupid. Non-Christians are extremely stupid people. Every professing Christian who refuses to accept and apply this truth should tear out this page from his Bible, or better yet, abandon apologetics altogether. Leave it to those of us who really mean it to contend for the faith.
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³ This is why although what we are now discussing is just one of the most important principles in biblical apologetics, the single most important thing that you can do to become a better apologist is to study systematic theology.
— Vincent Cheung, Apologetics in Conversation (2011), p. 10–11.
